The Origin of the Eighth ing had been lifted to an extraordinary degree by Richard Wagner who had conferred upon him the Franz Liszt once compared Richard Wagner's Ni­ great honor and high privilege of conducting the first belungen tetralogy with an enormous mountain range. performances of "Parsifal" in Bayreuth. The fact that This very appropriate metaphor can also be applied to a musician of highcst artistic standing and social the symphonic creations of Anton Bruckner. Like prestige championed the cause of a composer hitherto immense icy peaks rising to lofty heights above unknown - Levi had never heard the name beforc the valleys and human settlements, Bruckner's sym­ benefitted Bruckner not only in Germany but also phonies form a mighty range culminating in the in his native land. His stock began to rise in Vienna majestic and gr!indiose Eighth. This was the last sym­ and Richter finallv introduced in 1886 the Seventh phonic work which its creator was able to give to the in the Philharmoni~ Concerts. It was during these two world in a complete form. In his shecr titanic struggle eventful years that the Eighth Symphony came into over the finale of the Ninth, Bruckner succumbed to a being. deadly illness leaving behind the Ninth as the greatest torso of the musical literature. Bruckner commenced Bruckner began the composition in the summer of the Eighth in 1884. He was then 60 years of age and 1884 and concluded the sketch in August 1885. "The only on the threshold of success and recognition. None composition of the Eighth is completed", wrote of his three great masses was printed, only one of seven Bruckner to Levi on September 7, 1885 but he added symphonies published, the Fifth and Seventh were still "I wish the work were also finished", meaning com­ unperformed. The events which turned the tide in his pleted in score. It took him two more years to com­ favor did not occur in Vienna but in Germanv. Bruck­ plete this task. "Hallelujah! The Eighth is ready at ner's Vienna was also the Vienna of Eduard 'Hanslick last and 'my father in art' ("kiinstlerischer Vater") and Hans Richter. Both were powerful men: Hanslick should be the first to receive the news", reported was the critic of the most influential Austrian news­ Bruckner to Levi on September 4, 1887. About two paper "Neue Freie Presse" and Hans Richter held weeks later he dispatched the score to Munich elated k>ur important musical positions in the Imperial city. by hope and indescribable joy of having the symphony He was conductor of the Court Opera, presided over performed through Levi's "masterly hand". Levi lost the Philharmonic Orchestr<l. and the choral concerts of no time in studying the score, but did not have a the Society of the Friends of Music and also conducted favorable impression of the new symphony. Being a in the Court Chapel. An excellent musician of im­ sincere friend of Bruckner, Levi found himself in a posing appearance, he was no doubt a clever diplomat. painful predicament. He did not dare to face the A Wagnerian high-priest in Bayreuth and in the composer even by letters and to tell him of his own Vienna Opera, he championed the cause of Brahms in inability to understand the new work and to admit the Philharmonic concerts and steered clear of Bruck­ the lack of courage to perform it. Levi was fully ner. In so doing he secured the benevolence of Hans­ aware of the terrible shock this bad news was bound lick and the conservatives. He was elected conductor to have on Bruckner, and he appealed to Josef of the Vienna Philharmonic in 1875 and throughout Schalk, one of Bruckner's most trusted pupils, for the first decade of his tenure he did not program even help. Schalk undertook this sad mission and informed one Bruckner symphony. Small wonder when Bruck­ his master of Levi's rejection. This message caused ner, deeply hurt by this attitude, spoke of Richter as Brucknn to suITer a nervous collapse and he even "the generalissimo of deceit". True, in 1881 Richter entertained thoughts of suicide. Nevertheless he con­ led the Philharmonic Orchestra in a performance of tinued his correspondence with Levi and expressed the Romantic Symphony but it was not in the Phil­ his willingness to revise the symphony. harmonic series. On that occasion he and his musi­ In the meantime he had commenced the Ninth and cians did not run the risk of offcnding the conserva­ taken up the revision of the Third Symphony. The tive taste of their subscribers and irritating the hostile revision of the Eighth was eventually carried out be­ leading music critics by promoting an Austrian com­ tween August 1889 and March 1890. But the pros­ poser who went his own artistic ways. pects of a performance in Munich were gone, be­ The decisive turn in Bruckner's long and bitter cause Levi had retired from the direction of the con­ struggle for recognition came in 1884 with the first certs. He recommended Felix Weingartner in Mann­ performance of the Seventh Symphony in Leipzig heim who consented to program the Eighth during under the baton of Arthur Nikisch. It was not an the Winter season of 1891 and Bruckner looked overwhelming success but the brilliant musicianship, forward to the performance with excitement. Mean­ enthusiasm and determination of Nikiseh, then 29 of 'while Weingartner received an appointment as con­ age, won a victory for his neglected friC'nd. And tm ductor of the Court Opera and the Concerts of the weeks later (March 1885) the sym phony scored a Royal Orchestra in Berlin and he left Mannheim resounding triumph in Munich under Hnmann Levi. pri~r to the" end of the season. This unexpected change This event had far-rC'aehing repercussions. Nikisch, also dashed the hopes for a Mannheim performance although being thm an accomplishC'd mastC'r of the of the Eighth, but after having run the gamut of baton, was still in the ascendancy to fame. His posi­ disappointment and despair, Bruckner had the great tion as first conductor at the Municinal Theater in satisfaction of having the symphony accepted by Hans Leipzig did not carry the great prestige of the Dost Richtn and the Philharmonic Orchestra. It was of a Hofkapellmeister such as the one occupied by played on December 18, 1892, and received with Hermann Levi in Munich. Levi's high artistic stand­ great enthusiasm. Even Hanslick and the Brahms - partisans acknowledged Bruckner's success. Hugo Wolf - called it "a complete victory of the light over dark­ ness" and Bruckner, deeply moved and forgiving the humiliations of the past, expressed his sincerest thanks to Richter and the members of "the highest artistic society in music". Emperor Franz Joseph accepted the dedication of the symphony which appeared simul­ .. taneously in 1892 in Vienna and Berlin. The Textual Problem At this juncture we must deal briefly with a prob­ lem which is unique in musical history. In the early .. 1920s rumors began to circulate that the first editions of Bruckner's symphonies, published during his life­ time, except for the Sixth and Ninth, do not represent the artistic intentions of the composer. These rumors were substantiated to some degree by the gradual appearance of the critical Gesamtausgabe for which Robert Haas, professor at Vienna University and head 01 the Music Division of the Austrian National Li­ brary was responsible. Bruckner had willed his manu­ scripts to this venerable institution, and Haas was the logical choice for the editorship of the Gesamt­ allsgabe, issued by the National Library (formerly Court Library) in Vienna and the International Bruckner Society. The comparative study of the auto­ graph scores and first editions revealed substantial differences between these sources. This unaccountable and puzzling situation could not be explained because, strangely enough, the printer's copies (Stichvorlagen) which formed the connecting link between Bruckner's autograph scores and the first editions could in most cases never be produced. Thus there was in the opinion of Haas and others no authentic source for the alterations, omissions and instrumental changes evident in the published scores. In accordance with the editorial principles of the Complete Edition, the first editions which were used all over for about half a century, were not considered as verified by the composer and regarded "as arrangements by other hands". They were discarded as source material, for it was the avowed and only purpose of the Complete Edition to present Bruckner's creations in their original version (Originalfassll ng). This term must not be confused, as it is always the case, with Ur­ fassung (very first version). "Originalfassung" in the terminology of the Complete Edition means the ver­ sion extant in Bruckner's autograph which he con­ sidered the final form for presentation to the public. How the t'ditorial practice conformed to the editorial theory we will learn later. The publication of the original versions caused a heated controversy about the authenticity of the first editions and resulted in a campaign against those whom Haas called the "Praktikcr" who were charged with the responsibility for the "distortions". These "practical ont's" were, as everybody knew, primarily Bruckner's pupils Ferdinand Lowe and the brothers Franz and Josef Schalk. True, in the discussion of many specific cases as presented in the very scholarly reports attached to the individual volumes of the Complete Edition, neither Lowe nor the Schalk brothers were openly charged with tampering with the Completc Edition and we can expect the re­ the original text.